


bright eyes

by detectivemeer



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Death, Ensemble Cast, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Speculation, Time Skips, the things we carry with us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:41:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: I'm dead.How strange. How very, very strange.
Relationships: Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Scott McCall/Kira Yukimura
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	bright eyes

**Author's Note:**

> i, too, cannot believe in this the year of our werewolf savior 2020 im posting this bullshit but here we are ! also: canon? i dont know her...scott is a Happy Adult and thats all i know

Who is the beast? Who is the girl? Where is the difference, hot blood and cold death in her chest. Where does she live? What does she do?

What is she?

What is she?

-

She wakes up to: black. But not black. Color implies a sort of two-dimension. Flat surface, something over, something still. This is a living, writhing thing; a screaming, roiling, edged creature.

_Hello?_

She sends the thought out, a curious probe, a cautious knock at the shifting, glinting, dark lines of this--water? It is an ocean with no texture, oil-slick and thicker than tar, surrounding her completely, breathing around her.

It responds. She can feel it, the answer a slow, cool shiver slithering up her spine--a cold hand on the back of her neck. The words are the lines of its fingers, encrypted. The expectation lies on her now, heavy.

_Please_ , she thinks, says, feels. Desperate, meaning nothing. _Please._

-

Dad?

His strong shoulders are bent over her bed. She forgot to pull the covers up over her sheets. Her room is still in the mess she left it. Rumpled blankets and forgotten t-shirts on the floor. The thin layer of dust on her lamp, her dresser. Supernatural battles leave little time for housework. Besides: she's never been a Suzy Homemaker; God, the fights she and her mom got into. Did I raise you to be a pig? Do you have any sense of decency? You didn't even vacuum, Allison, this is--

Oh.

"Dad?" Allison moves forward. It feels weird. A half-motion--she thinks of moving forward, but instead of it being innate, automatic--she wants to move and so she does--she has to think, _left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg._

She crouches in front of his knees, trying to look into his face. Panic rises, distantly, the sun over the horizon. _Right hand up, down._ It passes through his leg. She wants to jerk back but her body doesn't move--her _body_ \--

_Fall back._

She lands coldly. Her father is making such awful noises, those strong shoulders shaking, shaking. _Reach out, reach out, reach out_. But she can't, she's stuck, out of control in a quiet, maddening way. A sucking, sharp sensation starts at the base of her spine and pulls her backward.

-

Half a glance: her friends, red-eyed and faces tight. Hors d'oeuvres: tiny shrimp, asparagus quiche, apple tarts. She hates asparagus. Scott runs out of somewhere to hide against a wall, sobbing. Lydia stares at herself in the mirror. Her father--everything runs together, watercolor slideshow. She snaps out of it.

-

Kira grabs Scott's face, smiling joyously. They are bright-eyed and in love. Her veil is so delicate, her eyes so sweet, wet with tears. His heart shines through his face; he's never looked more handsome, bow-tie hopelessly askew, long hair curling across his ears. What--

-

"Please forgive me," he asks, oh, he is beautiful, and oh, she--

-

Isaac's eyes bore into hers.

-

Lydia is sleeping.

Her red hair splays around her face, bright against her pillowcases, even in the dark. She snores, slightly. It makes Allison want to smile.

_Left leg, right leg, sit._ The bed doesn't move under her weight. She doesn't feel any relief in her feet. Standing, sitting, everything feels the same: not at all.

Allison lies all the way back, head over the bump of Lydia's ankle. _Blink_. The ceiling disappears for a brief moment, but even with her eyes closed she can feel its existence, like she can feel the dust bunnies beneath the bed and the heartbeat thrumming in Lydia's throat.

_I'm dead._

How strange. How very, very strange.

-

Allison spends the night staring at nothing and listening to Lydia's soft snores. In the morning, Lydia makes bacon and eggs for breakfast. This house is not the house she had and her hair is shorter. It suits her face well.

She salts her eggs and licks grease from every fingertip, a thick book cracked open across the kitchen table, filled with complex equations and words Allison doesn't understand. There is a framed photograph of Allison, Lydia, Scott, and Stiles on the fireplace's mantle--all of their faces pushed together and grinning. It's behind the one of Lydia throwing a graduation cap in the air and holding her doctorate degree in hand, and next to Kira and Lydia kissing Malia's cheeks at some sort of party, Derek and Scott's profiles visible in the background. It hits her, cruel and honest on impact. She is dead, and they are not, and they have lived without her.

The unfairness sits hotly in her chest. Bitter, angry at herself for it, jealous. They all collect into a furious, swirling storm. She has no reflection, but she can feel herself inside the glass of the frame. Then, with a quick, quiet snick, it cracks, fractures breaking across Stiles' eyes, traveling all the way across Lydia's grin.

-

Kira is eating marshmallows. Her legs are folded pretzel style underneath her and she's watching something online with puppets. She shoves two huge marshmallows into her mouth.

Allison grimaces, she can't help it. The black fury cools, unearthed by the sudden disgust. Who just eats marshmallows? Out of a bag?

Kira makes a honking laugh at something in the video, grinning a gross, huge, half-chewed marshmallow grin. Allison's eyes cut to the screen. A girl is tied to a chair, and another pops up from behind the puppet show. _Reach out._ She tries to swipe her finger across the trackpad to see if the title will pop up, but, of course, her finger slips straight through the laptop and bed below.

"What is this?" she asks, pointlessly. Kira eats another marshmallow and something twists in Allison's stomach. She doesn't _want_ to eat a handful of marshmallows, because that is seriously disgusting, but. But maybe just one. The last thing she ate was a box of raisins she found at the bottom of her purse. And it would be so nice, to taste again, to feel something--even something squishy and sweet.

She sighs. _Move forward, left leg up, right leg up._ Allison settles in next to Kira, fading Allison's side through hers. "Are they vampires? Are they dating? What's with the leather?"

Kira pulls a marshmallow apart, stretching the sticky, sugary pieces, laughing again. She's got a cute laugh, even with a mouth full of marshmallow. Allison smiles, too, and tries to focus on the show as long as she can.

-

Kira is _just_ loading the final episode of the season and then Allison is in a hospital. Isaac's eyes bore into hers. He looks just as he did, the day she--

She gapes, tries to step forward, but then her father is stepping through her, two styrofoam cups of coffee in his hands. Isaac's gaze tracks him, lips tugged down in a frown.

"How're you feeling?" Her dad plops down in a chair, hands Isaac a cup.

Isaac sniffs, and makes a small, satisfied noise. He takes a sip, says, "I'm fine, like I have been since I was admitted."

"Yes. Because not healing from three stab wounds is the definition of fine." Her dad raises his eyebrows over the brim of the styrofoam. Isaac breaks the stare, properly chided.

"It's fine. I'm healing now."

"Because you've been properly stitched up." Her dad sighs, stretches with various creaks and pops of his joints, and sets his cup on a side table. "Isaac." He waits until Isaac meets his eyes. "Is this about... Is this about Allison?"

Isaac lashes brush his cheeks. His claws poke through the cup, cream lightened coffee spilling rapidly from the holes. "Shit," he mutters. Her dad reaches quickly for a little trashcan, and helps Isaac wipe off most of the coffee from his hospital nightgown with some paper towels from the bathroom. The sheets are ruined, he strips them and balls them up, places them on the floor in front of the bed.

"I guess that's as good as any answer," her dad says, grinning. He looks so tired. He looks... _old_. She wants to hug him, desperately, more than anything in the world, more than life itself she just wants--

Isaac says, "If I had--"

"Stop. Christ, Isaac. You can't do this to yourself. If anyone's to blame, it's--" He stops, jaw clenching, teeth grinding down the words. "I know it's hard, son," he says, roughly, "but you need to start letting her go."

"I can't," says Isaac, his breath coming in fast gulps. "I can't, she's, she--"

Her dad reaches out, grabbing Isaac's shoulder with one solid hand as Isaac collapses forward into sobs. _Go to him, go to him._ She does, walking clean through the bed and Isaac himself, until she's directly in front of him, their faces mirrored with anguish. "Isaac," she says. "It's okay. It's okay, it's okay, I'm right here. Just see me. Just look at me." But he doesn't, neither of them do. She stumbles through the wall, into a room with a mother and her daughter, speaking French in quiet, amused tones. She blazes past them, sinks down through their ceiling until she's in the lobby and through the sliding doors. She sinks to her knees in the middle of the street. Cars buzz through her head; a rapid glimpse of _bumper, headlight, steering wheel, wedding ring, empty bag of chips, child's car seat, plastic toy, tailpipe, music, laughter, metal, metal._ Pedestrians trample her when the light changes, high heels and sneakers and wheelchairs and small dogs on short leashes. She hugs her knees to her chest and clenches her teeth against the tears that won't come. Then the tug begins at the back of her skull and drags her away.

-

_Why?_

It's not calmness, it's not any emotion. It's absolute apathy, its purest form. The sharp tickle of knives down the ridges of her spine and then she's back to un-existence. She is nearly grateful for the graceless, consuming black beast to swallow her up again.

_Is this it? Is this all I get?_

Frozen fingers brush the hair from the nape of her neck.

_No, no, no, don't send me back, I don't want--_

-

Scott's naked. Allison has the immediate, urgent impulse to spin around, but she doesn't actually _think_ it, and her mind is too--he's too--oh, wow.

It's creepy, it is _so_ creepy, and the absurdity of it makes her burst out in laughter. The ghost of his ex-girlfriend is watching him dry off from the shower, _holy fucking shit_. Their lives. Their ridiculous fucking lives.

He knots the towel around his waist, _thank God_ , and bends to pick a shirt up off his floor and toss it in the hamper. Huh. She doesn't think she can get dry mouth, but it sure feels like it. If she had a heartbeat it'd be racing. His muscles pull and stretch with every tiny move, obvious beneath all that bare, beautiful brown skin. His hair is still wet, black strands sticking to the back of his neck, water droplets rolling from the tips of his curling ends down his spine, those broad shoulders and toned back.

_Turn around._ Allison feels that familiar heat begin to cool now that she's not gawking at him. He pads past her, jeans and shirt on, bare toes peeking out adorably from the hem of his pants. _Walk, turn, sit._ She spreads out on his bed, watching him tuck books and homework into his backpack. The morning is a good time for him. The soft sun is a gentle glow on his face, his eyes are still thin with sleep, his mouth set in an unconscious, tiny smile. He hums something to himself. She doesn't recognize the tune.

She never even knew he did that. It breaks open something inside her, warm affection spilling out.

Scott puts on socks and grabs an orange for breakfast, tucking on his shoes left by the door. She floats along side him as he speeds to school in his motorcycle. Time passes in a confusing blur, for a while. Doctors and a new student named Theo, a boy named Liam. Stiles is furious. Everything happens quickly and she's there, but faded out of herself somewhat, dragged along by Scott. She doesn't worry. They've all faced so much, she never thought that would end even if she wasn't there it face it with them. Her fingers still itch for her bow as she watches the beta attack him and Scott, tender-hearted and too forgiving, doesn't even truly defend himself. The cruel boy comes back and everything slows. She has vivid, colorful thoughts about tearing his face off his skull.

She hovers her hands above his cheeks and whispers, "I love you, I love you, I love you, you're not alone, Scott, you're not alone, I love you, I'm right here, you're loved, you're loved, look at me, look at me, you're not alone," until the red fades from his eyes.

She kneels through his chest, trying to touch him, trying to wake him, trying to reach inside his body and find his soul because it's not fair, none of their lives are, of course, but she had him, she had him to touch and she got to give her heart to him, her final act, she had him there and she knew it in her bones. It didn't make it good, dying, but it was something, and she wants to be able to return that, she has to. Instead, Scott dies quietly, alone.

But she saw Lydia in what had to be the future, happy and with pictures of Scott on her mantle, a Scott that hasn't lived yet, here. He can't be gone, he's not. He's not.

"Take me to him," she demands. She's not sure how any of this works but she'll be damned if she lets that _whatever_ take Scott into the afterlife alone. She'll be here for him, now, even if she couldn't--

-

Scott kisses the tip of Kira's nose. She giggles, holds up her ice cream cone for him to lick at, and he does.

His hair is longer, his cheeks full of scruff, his dark eyes bright and calm. He's at least thirty.

Allison laughs and laughs, screams it at the sky. Kira pulls Scott up off the park bench and they wind their way, hand-in-hand, along the pathway. Allison watches them leave, grinning widely. Not even death can keep Scott McCall down, how can she even be surprised? She laughs, again. A hateful sadness spreads through her--she's glad, God, she's thrilled for him. But. But, maybe, for a moment, she was relieved when she thought she wouldn't be alone in this purgatory.

She turns without thinking and starts off in the opposite direction of them.

-

Braeden is fucking Derek Hale's brains out. Jesus _Christ_. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Allison squeaks, slapping both hands over her eyes on instinct. It doesn't help, she's still completely aware of--of how Braeden's _rolling_ , and sighing and pinning Derek one-handed as he stares up at her, gasping, stars in his eyes and--ew, just, emphatically _ew_. She whirls around and runs through their bedroom wall, into the kitchen, and straight out of one of their great bay windows.

She floats down and crosses the street before climbing on top of an ice cream vendor's cart. She looks up at the sky, accusatory, as if the liquid, shifting blackness will be there for her to yell at. It is clear blue, the sun so bright she'd be squinting if she were alive.

"You're the worst," she says.

-

Malia's college softball team is leading the big game. Scott is wearing glittery eyeshadow of her school's colors and Kira's shaking a huge, proud sign cheering on #34.

Lydia scoots back into their aisle of seats with fresh bags of popcorn and beers to pass around. Stiles curses an impressive blue streak at the umpire.

Allison sits on the armrest between Scott and Lydia. Butter, salt, grass, blue and purple glitter caught on Scott's eyelashes, Kira's painted and grinning face, the tall man next to Lydia who has her purse in her lap and keeps glancing at her with a soppy smile. Allison puffs her chest out in an imitation of a deep breath.

She looks up past the edge of the horizon, says, "Thanks," and then hops a dozen feet off the ground when Malia throws out the rival's team's best hitter, hollering joyously with her friends.

-

_Okay_ , she says. She lifts her hand and touches her fingers to the liquid soft curve of the breathing blackness.

-

It all eats her in a rush, the knowledge. This is where they die, this is who they leave behind. This is how they live. Who they love (her, her, her, always, and it is so sweet, that hurt).

And there, the middle string of this instrument, is her, all of the possibilities and impossibilities laid bare. She's peeled open her soul and reading the secrets of its skin. Her mother gives her a rattle and a smile and here she marries Scott and here she drowns in a lake that summer in Utah and here she is a werewolf and here she is dead. Here, Lydia is dead. Here, they all are. Here, they all live.

Here, she makes herself strong and she falls in love with a soft-palmed boy and falls out of love and builds something and breaks all their hearts and she can't be sorry, not for a single wretched moment of it.

-

He can't be much older than twenty. Lydia's lilies are just starting to brown at the edges. His roses are clutched in his hands, the thorns cutting through the plastic wrapping and poking his skin.

Scott sets the bouquet against her tombstone. "Happy birthday," he says, thickly.

Kira echoes the sentiment, placing her own bundle of daisies next to his. They link hands.

"We all miss you everyday," says Scott. "I wish you were here. I--I'm sorry we didn't--I'm sorry _I_ didn't… Please forgive me," he asks, oh, he is beautiful, and oh, she loves him; how lucky they were, ever to know each other. She can see it now. She can see everything, now, and it's all so obvious now that she's not trying to map a mountain with a microscope; they were so big and brilliant and the good they caused each other--and he asks for forgiveness? He doesn't even know. Scott McCall. Her heart aches for him in a thousand different ways.

"Scott," she says, reaching out to touch the soft curves of his cheeks. Beautiful, beautiful, every piece of him.

Kira places a hand on his shoulder. Allison loves her, so fiercely. It's a sharper, hotter love than the one for Scott, which she has had time to refine and mature and grow into, grow with. She wishes this life was one where they could have--if they just had a few years sliding in one direction or another--twining together, the chance to build, they could have been--Allison wants--

Well. It's a fruitless wish. She doesn't want to linger on it.

"She would, if she were here," says Kira, watching Scott intently. "She wouldn't even think there was anything to forgive."

Scott's face crumples and Kira surges forward to wrap him in a hug. Allison steps to the side and out of the moment, not wanting to intrude.

She fades into Lydia's college graduation and shadows her the whole day, burning with pride.

-

"Goodnight," says Chris. He hesitates a moment, then darts in and presses a fast, nervous kiss against Victoria's lips, and races away down the steps.

Victoria touches her fingertips to her mouth, fighting a growing smile. She slumps back against the front door and watches his taillights disappear.

Allison laughs softly into her palms. They are such uncool dorks. She watches her mom who is not yet her mom under the yellow porch lights. Victoria brushes her waist-length hair behind her ear, grinning brilliantly. Her happiness warms Allison like the sun.

"I love you," says Allison, as Victoria begins to unlock the door. "I miss you, mom."

-

"Yeah," she says, feels, thinks. Sad, because she'll always be sad, because it will always be unfair. Beacon Hills shines below the Preserve's cliff face. It could be the day of her birth or fifty years after she's passed as far as she can tell. The sky is moonless and bright with starlight. "Okay."

The blackness stills and smooths into a great sphere. A massive black mirror, or depthless lake. It swallows the world until only she is left.

She misses them all already. But she'll see them soon enough; time is chewing gum to her, now. She reaches out, plucks the sphere from the air. It rolls between her thumb and forefinger, a small black marble, so cold its sting could be mistaken for heat. She makes a fist around it and closes her eyes.


End file.
